


The gods and their tricks

by framboise



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Fictional Religion & Theology, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Miscommunication, Older Man/Younger Woman, POV Alternating, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-12 04:23:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12951210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/framboise/pseuds/framboise
Summary: Soulmate marks are rare, precious things in Westeros and almost unheard of in the North. When Sansa is born with the name of her soulmate written on her side, Ned and Catelyn vow to tell no one, to discourage Sansa from believing in soulmates at all, for the last girl born in the North with such a mark lost her life because of it and started a war that devastated the Seven Kingdoms.It is only three years since Elia's death when the name of Oberyn's soulmate appears on his wrist, a name that makes him rage at the gods for their cruelty, for their scorn. The Lannisters had ordered his sister's defilement and death, and killed his sweet niece and nephew, and now the gods want him to marry a SansaLannister? The world will end before he weds such a woman.





	The gods and their tricks

**Author's Note:**

> Sansa has been aged up to her late teens in this story.
> 
> I adore soulmate AUs, so I thought I'd write my own. And if you want visuals for this fic, I made a graphic [here](https://framboise-fics.tumblr.com/post/168782758352/soulmate-marks-are-rare-precious-things-in)

* * *

 

 

 

It is Old Nan who sees Sansa's soulmark first, when she wipes the newborn babe with a blanket before handing her to Catelyn, but she doesn't speak, deciding to let the happy parents enjoy their joy for just a moment before they learn that another Stark has been cursed with a soulmate.

Old Nan still blames herself for not finding the mark, the name, on Lyanna when she was born. But then a soulmate mark had yet to be seen in the North so she did not _think_ to look. It was the new gods who had brought the marks with them, and they had yet to dig their claws in tightly here where the old gods still held strong. Lyanna had been blessed with a full head of dark hair from birth, just as some of the old Starks were, hair which had hidden the name of Rhaegar Targaryen writ on the back of her head. It was only a few months before the tourney at Harrenhal, when Lyanna had singed off a section of her hair after Brandon had dared her to jump over a fire, that the name was revealed.

And thus followed only tragedy for the Starks, for Old Nan's sons. No good can come of travelling south, she had always thought, and she was only proven right. And here is the newest Stark with the name of a southron son, a prince as old as her father, on her side. Old Nan shakes her head and quietly clucks her tongue, but in the end she does not have to be the one to tell Ned and Catelyn and break their hearts, for they have already spotted the name, black as ink, on the babe's side – _Oberyn Martell_.

Catelyn's tears of joy have changed to ones of sadness, and Ned has turned away to look into the fire opposite the bed, gritting his jaw. Old Nan watches as he closes his eyes and whispers something and then looks back at his babe, touches the wisps of her red hair with a shaking hand and a sad smile.

"We will tell no one," Catelyn says.

"Perhaps he would be a good husband to her, perhaps the gods have done this for a reason," Ned says.

"I won't let her marry such a man, a Dornishman who will have mistresses, a man who would flaunt his bastards openly," she spits, and Old Nan sees Ned flinch as if Catelyn has struck him.

None of the Starks should have ever gone south. Is that the fate of this little one? To journey to some sandy land where the sun will singe her pale northern skin, a foreign land where snow has never fallen and the old gods sleep deep ne'er to be woken again? Old Nan prays it is not so.

"He may not share her mark, the bond may not be returned," Catelyn says.

Ned frowns deeply again and then the little babe squeaks and flails a tiny hand and he huffs a smile. "She's a perfect little thing, Cat," the proud father says, and then leans forward to kiss his wife. "Thank you," he murmurs, and Old Nan stands up to leave them in peace.

She will go to the heart tree now, and say her piece, beg for the old gods to intercede and save the North from sorrow.

 

*

 

Elia had been the one fascinated by soulmate marks, the one who dreamed of finding such a mark on her skin, who journeyed to meet the handful of fated couples, lowborn and high, that lived in the far corners of Dorne, bringing gifts with her, breaking bread with them, her brown eyes shining with a joy at simply being in their presence. It is unbearable cruel then that Oberyn is the one to receive the gods' blessing a few years after she dies, crueller still when he sees what girl the gods have thought to pair him with, the other half of his soul - Sansa _Lannister_.

This girl is almost thirty years younger than him, and she may be sweet, she may not have the blonde hair the Lannisters are known for, she may be good and pure, but he doesn't care, he will never tie himself to such a family, never share his bed with a Lannister, put his seed in a Lannister, live in the same house as a Lannister unless he is doing so in order to get his revenge against them.

And revenge is no foundation of a marriage, he thinks to himself darkly, as he sets sail for Essos and self-exile. His brother will not allow him to take the very revenge that is his reason for still breathing, will not let him storm the Red Keep with poisons and weapons and armies, and Oberyn cannot linger in Dorne where every sight, every smell and taste, reminds him of his sister. He had helped Doran make a marriage pact between Arianne and little Viserys before he left, the first step in a reckoning Doran has planned against the Iron Throne, but the two of them are still children, and decades are too long to wait for the kind of revenge Oberyn desires, if his brother's plans ever come true at all.

In those lost years, Oberyn travels in the Free Cities, learning poisons and the darker arts so that he might one day avenge Elia, and studies at the Citadel, forging six links of a maester's chain before the dearth of answers in their books about soulmates makes him flee once again. He sells his sword, his body, his bloodlust, fighting armies and brigands and men in single combat. And every time he removes the bloodstained vambraces from his arms he is startled anew when he sees that name staring back at him. A part of him hopes each time that the name might be gone, that the gods might change their minds, but it remains, black as if it has been freshly writ in ink.

He tells no one about it, and lets no one see it. He does not write home to his brother to ask about the girl and who her parents are - for she is surely the daughter of some poor Lannister cousin since her name has yet to be mentioned in gossip - or where she lives. It is likely she is growing up just as horrified as he, for if she and her parents were pleased by the match they would have contacted his family and asked whether the soulmarks were reciprocal.

Or she may not have his mark on her at all, she may be gliding blithely through the world unaware that her own name is like a knife in his gut that he cannot remove, that she haunts him as he runs half the world away trying to escape from her, from what her family did, from Elia.

 

*

 

Sansa cannot remember how old she is when she first realises that the mark on her side, which sits somewhere between her ribs and hip, is a name, the name of her soulmate – she has to crane her neck to read it, to follow each letter, _Oberyn Martell_. But by the time she knows what it is, her mother has already told her about soulmates, and how they are a remnant of the old gods, a superstition, that this is why there are only a few dozen people with soulmate marks in the whole of Westeros. Her septa says the same, that it is up to parents to arrange a marriage, not gods, that Sansa's duty is to them and not the man whose name brands her skin.

They tell Sansa that she must hide her mark from everyone and she is only happy to do so. She sighs and turns her nose up whenever she hears servants whispering tales about soulmates, or she has to listen to Jeyne dreamily imagining finding a mark on herself. If you had a mark, Sansa wants to say, you would not want it.

She knows that what her mother and septa have told her is true because the man the old gods have thought to pair her with isn't the chivalrous knight or sweet prince of her dreams, but a southron warrior from a land of lusts, a land of mistresses and bastards. The Red Viper, she heard a visitor to Winterfell once name him, boasting of his fury on the battlefield, his skill with daggers and poison, and she shivered at the thought of being in the clutches of such as he. No, Sansa was not made for such a man, she was made for someone like Prince Joffrey, the crown prince, and King's Landing is the furthest south she will ever go.

If the Seven will allow it, if she is good and her prayers are answered, she might be queen some day. A future that looks to come true when her father tells her that the King, and the prince, are journeying to Winterfell, and her mother tells her that she believes he thinks to ask for Sansa's hand in marriage for his son.

She floats through the days before his arrival, spending many hours in the glass gardens, her head already in King's Landing, in the grand hall, in her luxurious rooms, in the pretty gardens outside under the warm southron sun. She will never have to return to Winterfell, she thinks, never have to wear these poor northern dresses and cower from rain and snow outside, or reread again the small pile of histories in Winterfell's meagre library. She will be married to a golden prince, handsome and honourable and good. She will bear his sons, and be loved. She will have everything her heart desires.

 

*

 

There were soulmates in every land Oberyn travelled through, with different gods made responsible for their marks each time. In one land, those with soulmate marks were thought of as gods themselves, in another people believed that soulmates were great kings and queens born again in new bodies with no memory of the last and left them offerings, made them wear crowns. In some there were many soulmates, in others very few, but nowhere were the marks and their owners scorned or shunned.

Even the vicious men he fought with spoke of soulmates around the night fires, musing about what the girl promised to them in another life might be like, her teats, her cunt, sometimes even her gentle heart when the night was long and many men had been lost in battle the day before. Oberyn did not think of what his own soulmate looked like, if she was good, he thought only of the image of her name in black ink, and felt an echo in his chest of the feeling he felt when he first heard that Elia and her children had been killed.

He has been abroad from Dorne for almost two decades when he decides to return, a notion that comes to him one night when he is sleeping out under the stars in the grand gardens belonging to a rich gardener who had hired Oberyn to deal with the thieves who were stealing his prize flowers, as the scent of Jasmine and Evening Star floats on the warm breeze. He has almost forgotten what the skies look like in Dorne, the smell of the blood orange groves, the sound of laughter echoing in the Water Gardens. What future does he have, he thinks as the cold stars glint down upon him - to die out here in the East alone and nameless?

He leaves before dawn and treks west across the lands, pushing his horses hard, barely pausing to sleep and eat, and sooner than he had thought, he reaches the Narrow Sea, and after a journey by boat, sees the towers of Sunspear on the horizon and weeps until the front of his tunic is wet through with tears. In the city, he visits a seamstress first, not wanting to appear in the bloodstained leathers that have been his clothing of choice for so many years, and presents himself at the gates of the palace, feeling oddly young and nervous, like he is a boy again.

He has sent ravens now and then, and he knows from decoding Doran's messages that his brother often uses a chair due to the pain and swelling of his legs, and yet to see him now in front of him, to see him almost twenty years older than the youthful man he had left, guts him to the core.

"My prince," he says when he enters the throne room, bowing deeply to delay the moment when he must raise his head and face his brother.

"Oberyn," Doran says and nods, looking stern. His eyes roam his brother. "You look good, all your limbs in place, still handsome," Doran smiles. "The tales of your exploits have been quite alarming," he says and then motions to the door, "come, let us talk in my solar. They say that you once fought off twenty men single-handedly, that you battled beasts and monsters, that you bedded half a dozen princesses."

"It was more like ten - princesses that is - and a dozen soldiers."

Doran huffs a laugh. He turns his head back as they enter the solar that used to be their father's. "But no great love? No secret wife?"

"No," Oberyn says, and then distracts himself by fingering the new ornaments and wall hangings in the room. "I founded a company of second sons," he reports.

Doran nods from behind his desk, moving aside a pile of scrolls. "And you forged several measter's links, you learned the dark arts. You fought, you trained, you honed yourself into one of the greatest warriors Westeros has ever known."

"You say this as if I have been following some grand plan, as if I am only a weapon. I am a man, like any other man, foolish, and dragged hither and thither by the gods, subject to their plans."

Doran frowns. "The gods-" he repeats, unused perhaps to Oberyn speaking of such things, and then sighs when his brother will not elaborate.

"I have been invited to King's Landing," Doran says then, and wheels his chair out from behind his desk and towards the balcony.

Oberyn follows, bringing up a hand to shade his eyes as the southron sun hits his face.

"A seat on the small council has been offered, in recognition of Dorne's alliance with the Iron Throne," Doran continues, dryly.

Oberyn scoffs.

"You will take my seat, for I am too ill to travel. You will go to the Red Keep, and you will return to Dorne the head of Elia's murderer."

Oberyn turns away and clenches his fists. "This is the only recompense made to us?"

"I have plans, brother, you know that. Plans you might have helped with if you had remained here in Dorne instead of running half the world away." Doran turns his chair to face Oberyn.

Doran's face is lined with age and weariness. "Forgive me," Oberyn says and drops to a kneel that seems to surprise Doran. He hangs his head. "I abandoned you and my responsibilities to Dorne. I was reckless, selfish, foolhardy."

"Why did you do it?" Doran asks. "Grief is better shared, you know this from when our parents passed."

"I cannot yet explain," Oberyn says, standing up. "I will, one day, but it is still too raw."

"Grief? Or something else? And raw after so many years? What did you do before you left, what happened?" Doran presses.

Oberyn shakes his head. "Not yet, brother. Soon."

"Soon." Doran says, tapping his fingertips on the arm of his chair.

"I will go to King's Landing," Oberyn says. "I will sit at this boy king's table and try not to kill them all in their beds," he smiles darkly.

"See that you do that, for I do not want to welcome a chest of your bones a few years hence."

"Never," Oberyn says, leaning forward to grasp his brother's shoulder, and Doran raises his arms for the two of them to hug. Oberyn feels his throat tighten in grief, and shame. "I've missed you," he murmurs.

"And I you, brother. Welcome home."

 

*

 

How wrong she had been, a silly little girl who knew _nothing_ of the world.

 

How foolish, vain, treacherous, how _blind_.

 

Her prince is a monster, her palace a prison, her father is dead.

 

The throne room where she once imagined she would sit by the side of her husband and king as he ruled is now the site of her greatest abasement, as Joffrey orders her beaten to pay for her brother's victories.

She had dreamed of the gardens of the Red Keep when she was at Winterfell, amongst all her other dreams of the future that have been curdled into horrors, and she finds herself roaming them for hours during the day, barred from leaving the walls of the Red Keep. She sits by fountains, walks around and around pathways lined with rose bushes and sweet-smelling trees, stands on the pergola underneath drooping Wisteria branches, wishing she could be on one of those ships out there in the bay, sailing to somewhere new. Somewhere like Dorne.

She thinks about her soulmate now, finds her hands drifting to touch her side where his name is hidden underneath her clothes. She had cast him aside in her mind and been thankful that he had not written a raven to her parents or appeared on a horse at Winterfell to dash her dreams. But now she wishes he had come for her, that he had saved her from herself, saved her father and her family too.

She treasures the small things she already knows about him and that she hears from the gossip of other women. They say the Red Viper is fierce and ruthless with his enemies, killing with spear and dagger and poison. Men say that he steals wives and ruins maidens, but women that he takes many lovers and loves them so well that they chase after him across Essos, that he has the stamina of two men. Dornishmen take lovers and mistresses, and Dornishwomen are free to do as they wish, are loved and respected more than the women in the other kingdoms.

She has never met Oberyn and likely never will, but she is free to imagine him, to think that he might ride into King's Landing on a Dornish sand steed and save her. More foolish dreams for a foolish girl.

Sometimes in the gardens, she picks a spot shaded from walkways and other people and lifts her face to the sky to stare at the blue, at the skidding clouds, and pretends that she is looking at another sky somewhere else, that she is free.

 

*

 

He is in the gardens of the Red Keep one afternoon, trying to keep as much distance between himself and the haunted halls of the keep, when he spies a ladies foot jutting out from under a bush and his heart chills. Are the horrors of the Red Keep neverending? He bends down and touches the ankle gingerly to assess the condition of its owner but it flinches in his hands and he steps back as the lady in question yelps.

A smile rises unbidden to his mouth as a beautiful woman with red hair and a fine blue gown squeezes from between two bushes and brushes leaves and twigs from her person, flushing with embarrassment.

"Apologies, my lady," he says and dips his head.

She gapes at him and then curtseys, "my lord," she says.

"Might I suggest that this is not the best location for an assignation?"

"An-" her eyebrows crease, "oh no, oh no," she shakes her head, "there was no one with me. Please, my lord," she clutches at his arm with quite some strength, panic in her manner. "I was alone, I swear it."

"I meant no offense, my lady," he says. He is not the kind of man to tattle on young women finding love elsewhere anyway, but if he explains this he fears it will only panic her further.

"May I ask what you _were_ doing?" he asks. The trees and bushes that surround them lend the odd sense that they are the only two alive in the garden.

"I like to lie on the ground and stare up at the sky," she says hesitantly, "and be surrounded by flowers and trees."

She likes to be alone, he hears.

"That is not so strange. It is hard to find a moment of repose here in King's Landing sometimes, isn't it."

"Yes, my lord," she says, biting her lip still with worry.

"My lady, I swear I will tell no one. There is nothing to tell, just a lady searching for some peace and quiet, someone fond of natural wonders," he adds. "I lived with a lord and his daughter once, in Essos as their guard, and she was the same. She filled her rooms with flowers plucked from the gardens and had me build shelves for them so you could barely see the walls for green, I used to spy her out in the gardens at dawn in her nightclothes trailing petals." He smiles at the memory.

Her shoulders soften at his story.

"Forgive me, for my poor manners, my lady, for I have forgotten to introduce myself. I am Prince Oberyn Martell, of Dorne," he says and watches as some emotion he cannot understand, some sorrowful depth of feeling, passes across her face.

"My prince," she says, voice shaking a little. "I am Lady Sansa Stark, of Winterfell."

 _Sansa_ , that name sends an icy shard into his heart for just one moment, a reminder of the woman whose name graces his wrist, before he hears her family name and feels sadness instead.

"My lady," he says, taking her hand to kiss it. "I am honoured to meet you, and I grieve with you for the loss of your father."

"He was a traitor," she says, eyes glancing around the copse.

She is wise to think of who might be listening, wise perhaps to pretend to herself that her father _is_ a traitor for if she remains at King's Landing, if she marries the King, she will lose her family entirely and it would only dash her sanity to pieces if she thought they might be returned to her one day. A lovely thing like her should not have to marry a monster like Joffrey, nor join a house like the Lannisters, and he prays that she gives him a pair of sons in quick succession and then is happily ignored for his mistresses, and can carve out a life for herself apart from him.

She pauses and looks at him as if waiting for him to say something. A bird rustles in a nearby bush and then flies free, soaring above them.

"I wish you a pleasant stay in King's Landing, my prince," she says.

No stay here would be pleasant, he thinks but does not say, bowing and taking his leave from her.

 

*

 

She met her soulmate today but he did not know her, he did not recognise her.

She did not recognise him on first sight either - the embroidered suns on his yellow waistcoat and the golden necklace of a spear, his dark skin and strong widow's peak - because she was so shaken from being found thus in the gardens, and from his notion that she had a lover, but as they talked she realised that he was from Dorne. And then when he said his _name—_

She looked for recognition in his eyes, for a sign that he knew her as his soulmate, but there was only a gentle concern, a courteous manner.

Does he not wear her mark on his skin, is the bond one-sided? Or, worse, does he have her name but not want her, not recognise her as any soulmate of a fearsome prince of Dorne. Did he set her aside in his mind before he met her just like she did him, before she came to know that she had been the greatest kind of fool.

Her heart feels sore, tears prick at her eyes, as she watches him stride away, a confidence and security about his steps that she will never have. He is handsome too, she thinks, and then lets out a bitter laugh. She would be happy to have an ugly soulmate if that man could spirit her away from here. Perhaps he feels the same, perhaps her beauty is useless to him, inconsequential when she is so worthless in other ways.

 

*

 

He enters the throne room one day, drawn by shouts and a high cry to find a horror from a nightmare. Lady Sansa Stark, her dress torn, being beaten by a Kingsguard as Joffrey sits on the throne and watches. None in the audience look surprised – this has happened before, and is likely the reason she was hiding in the gardens to begin with.

"Is this your welcome, your entertainment for Dorne?" Oberyn calls loudly as he strides forward with his men, and the Kingsguard pauses. "You beat young women in front of the throne?" Oberyn continues.

You would beat your own betrothed, he thinks, but does not say, for to make a personal slight against Joffrey might only bring Sansa more pain eventually. Better to couch it in terms of alliance, and _culture_. As if any land that hurts girls and women can be said to have a culture.

Joffrey's face turns red in indignation but he is distracted by the arrival of Tyrion, calling for Joffrey to stop, asking for a cloak to cover Sansa.

Tyrion leads her away and Oberyn meets her gaze for a moment, the pain in her eyes cutting him to the core.

He sends a raven to Doran, asking if there is ought they can do for poor Sansa Stark, knowing that there isn't. Tywin Lannister will not let the key to the North out of his hands no matter the price paid or the promises made; and he cannot spirit her away without consequences. The only, pitiful, recourse he has is to express his disapproval in the strongest possible terms during a small council meeting, arguing that it does no good to Joffrey's reputation to have him abuse his betrothed, an obvious notion. It is a sign of Tywin's loss of control of his grandson, a crack in his web of power that might mean that Dorne can take its revenge sooner than planned. But not soon enough to save a poor maiden like Sansa Stark. The Red Keep is once again a site for brutality and it guts Oberyn, makes his hands itch for his dagger and spear, makes him want to burn the whole place down to ashes.

He runs away from King's Landing for a week, with his retinue and Ser Daemon. They take a boat out along the coast and moor it in empty bays, and he fishes and swims and wishes he could take the boat all the way to Dorne, that he had not made a promise to Doran to remain in this hellish place.

 

*

 

She is to marry Tyrion, they say. But she _cannot_ marry him, she has a soulmate. A soulmate that does not want her, that may not even have her name on his skin. She can hardly go to him and beg he save her, he might only think her mad. Neither can she reveal her mark to the Lannisters, for it will do nothing to stop them and their plans to steal the North through her name and the sons she will give them.

She cries, and shuts herself in her rooms, lacking even the strength to journey to the gardens for their consolations. Her new handmaiden, Shae, tries to coax her out with sweets and tales of the fools and singers who entertain the court, but she cannot be moved.

One afternoon, Shae comes upon her bathing, a time when Sansa has always ordered to be left alone, and sees her soulmark for the first time.

"Oh, Sansa," she says sadly, kneeling beside the bath. "The gods have blessed you. I never thought to see a soulmark in life."

"The gods have cursed me," Sansa replies.

"You should tell him, Prince Oberyn, you should tell the High Septon too," she presses.

"No," Sansa says, shaking her head and then grabbing Shae's hand. "Swear you will tell no one, swear it."

"I swear, my lady," she says sorrowfully. "But the gods must have done this for a reason," she adds.

What reason except to hurt her more, Sansa cannot fathom.

Yet still she hopes, vainly, desperately, in the days before her wedding, on the morning itself, as she walks up the aisle, and up until the very last moment, that Oberyn will come to save her, to stop this wedding, and she feels grief-stricken tears bead at her eyes when he does not, and a painful tightness in her chest, a wrench in her very soul, when she is cloaked by Tyrion, when she becomes forever more a Lannister.

 

*

 

Oberyn hears of Tyrion's wedding the day their boat returns to King's Landing. The news filters into his mind as the Dornish who remained in the city meet them on the sunny docks and chatter the gossip of the last week, talking of the ceremony that took place just an hour ago. Poor Sansa Stark, to marry Tyrion, to become a Lannister—

Sansa _Lannister_ , he thinks suddenly, his heart stopping. Seven hells, it's _her_ , _she's_ his soulmate.

Oberyn runs, he races through the streets, his men following behind, knocking past merchants and carts, stealing a horse to ride faster as the sunlight of the day dips. He cannot be too late, he _cannot_ , the gods cannot be so cruel.

His chest is tight with exertion, his body hot with sweat as he clatters into the Royal Sept of the Red Keep. He grabs the High Septon to explain his cause, wanting to rage at the slowness of the man and his septas, pointing to the mark on his bare wrist clear and true even in the darkened room.

There is _no time_ , he thinks, no time to sit and talk and consult scrolls. But finally the High Septon agrees, and Oberyn stands over his shoulder as he writes the necessary words on parchment and then he sprints towards the wedding feast, without waiting for the old fool.

Oberyn is too late to stop the wedding but not too late to stop anything else.

"Stop, this marriage must be annulled!" he calls as he bursts into the room.

"What is the meaning of this?" Tywin demands as the people in the hall startle and start to chatter excitedly.

"I have her name on my skin," Oberyn says, using the ceremonial phrase. "The bride is my soulmate."

He cannot look at her yet, does not want to see if she is disappointed or, worse, desperately relieved, for he feels such shame at leaving her here to be married in the first place, at not knowing. He should have known when he first saw her, he should have met her when she was young and saved her from all her sorrows.

Tywin frowns and then scoffs. "A poor joke," he says, and picks up his wine cup to drink.

Oberyn grits his jaw. He will cut down Tywin where he stands if he puts himself between him and Sansa.

"'Tis true, my lord, Prince Oberyn bears her name," the High Septon says, panting and out of breath as he finally arrives at the feast with his retinue. "The marriage must be annulled."

Gasps are heard throughout the room and one lady faints at the shock, or the excitement. If Oberyn were in the crowd he would be enjoying this embarrassment of the Lannisters but his heart has no place for mirth at the moment, only a searing tension.

"That may be very well," Tywin says, "but we do not live in the days of barbarians. One-sided soulmarks cannot force a marriage if the other party does not wish it."

Oberyn turns to look at Sansa then, at his soulmate. He hopes that she knows that he would treat her well, that he would cherish her, never touch her if she did not wish it, that he only wants to save her now and that he can by marrying her and whisking her away to Dorne, that he does not want to own her.

She is crying, her eyes wide and blue, her mouth trembling.

 

*

 

Oberyn has swept into the room and said the words she has ached to hear, as if her nightmare has burst open to reveal a sweet daydream. Her heart trembles in her chest.

She could not speak loud enough, strong enough, to save her father's life, but she must do so now to save her own life.

"I have his mark," she says, but her voice is garbled and quiet with her tears. She coughs. "I have his mark," she says again, and the people closest to her hear, Oberyn hears, his face creasing with a kind of agony.

"It's true, I have seen it," Shae calls out.

"And who are you?" Tywin sneers.

"The lady Sansa's handmaiden."

"Quite some performance," Tywin drawls.

"If the bitch wants to go and live in the deserts of Dorne with his mistresses, she should feel free to do so," Cersei mutters spitefully, loud enough for those at the head table to hear.

"This is very dramatic," Tyrion says and then hiccoughs.

Sansa fears Tyrion will vomit, he is so drunk, but she is only thankful that the drink has dulled any possible anger at the threat of losing his wife.

For he shall lose his wife now, shan't he, and she shall lose this first husband, won't she? They will let Prince Oberyn marry her, they will let her go free, they _have_ to, they have each other's names on their skin. And Sansa doesn't care why Oberyn never told her until now, why he did not think she would make a good wife, why he did not want her, she will forgive him anything if he takes her away from King's Landing and the Lannisters.

"My lady?" The High Septon asks. He has approached her while her mind was whirling. "Where is the mark?"

"On my side," Sansa says, waving her hand towards her corseted waist. Her eyes have slid towards Oberyn and her gaze is arrested by his face, by the anger and passion writ large upon it.

"Now look here-" Tywin says.

"You would defy the gods?" one of the septa's accompanying the High Septon says, and Tywin gives her such a look that Sansa fears for the woman's life.

"Come, my lady, we shall examine the mark," the High Septon says, and Shae strides over to help Sansa out of her seat. Her legs feel weak upon standing, her knees unsteady.

She turns back and looks at Oberyn as she is led away to an antechamber, Shae muttering soothing words in her ear. The feast is a tumult of noise and shock, and there are dozens of faces staring at her but she can see only one. Can it be that the gods were right, that he does not scorn her, that he shall save her?

In the small room, Shae lowers Sansa's gown to her hips, unties her corset and carefully lifts her shift up to bare only the patch of skin bearing her mark. Sansa would thank her for her care if she was not currently in such a woozy daze, her ears ringing with silence and shock.

The High Septon peers closer, and then reaches to press a finger to the mark which makes Sansa shudder with horror. Only a septon may touch a soulmark, other than the owner of the name, but it still feels so very wrong.

The man nods to himself. "A true match," he murmurs, and then leaves to tell the hall, as Shae dresses Sansa again with nimble fingers.

"Will they let me go?" Sansa whispers to her, her fingernails digging into her own palms.

"Yes, my lady," Shae says, as she tugs the laces of her gown. "They have to, it is the will of the gods." She puts her hands on Sansa's shoulders. "You will be free."

Free, Sansa thinks, and shuts her eyes, and wills it so. The old gods and the new, gods whose names have been forgotten, gods who have yet to be named. She prays to them all.

 

*

 

He waits in the hall of the Tower of the Hand with Daemon and his men who have followed him to the Red Keep, he waits for them to bring his soulmate to him.

"We will get her out of here, no matter what," Daemon mutters to him, and squeezes his shoulder tightly, as the two men stare at the Lannister guards in their red cloaks. The Dornish have knives hidden upon them as they always do, and Oberyn's hands itch to reach down and free one, to throw it right between the eyes of the blond guard opposite him. If the Kingsguard were here he would easily do it to one of them, but Tywin has wisely barred the king and his guards from this meeting.

Tywin enters through one door, and Sansa through another, accompanied by the High Septon and various septas. She is pale and shaken but she does not take her eyes from Oberyn.

Tywin takes a seat but neither Oberyn nor Sansa make a move to sit, their bodies frozen. If he could only reach out and touch her, his arms ache to hold her, to comfort her.

"It is true, they are matched, my lord," the High Septon announces. "The marriage has been annulled."

Sansa closes her eyes and sighs shakily. Oberyn wants to call to her but he must be strong for just one moment more.

Tywin sneers at the High Septon's words and looks down at the parchment placed in front of him. "Since the lady Sansa is still a ward of the crown without her marriage to my son," Tywin says, "I must insist that Prince Oberyn weds the girl before he whisks her away to her new home."

To marry here in the Red Keep, _here_ where he and Sansa have both suffered such hurts, here under the watchful eyes of the family he hates.

"I would be delighted to marry here with the king and the court in attendance," Oberyn replies, smiling dangerously. "This afternoon would suffice. If I might have a word with my soulmate first?" he says, his jaw tight, the fury clear in his voice.

 

*

 

"Oh, Oberyn," Sansa cries, the moment the door is shut and they are alone, and runs into his arms, no thought for propriety, only relief.

"Sansa," he groans, clutching her tightly to him, "sweet Sansa." He cups the back of her head in his hand and presses his forehead against hers. "A few more hours, just a few more hours, and then I will take you from this place and you will never have to return."

"Do you swear it?" she asks, pulling back and staring at him tearfully.

" _Never_ , I swear it," he says and then he bows his head. "The name on my wrist. It says Sansa _Lannister_ ," he confesses and her eyes widen. "If it had been Sansa Stark I would have known, I would have ridden for Winterfell when you were but a babe to declare my wish to court you when you were older. I would have never let you and your family come to King's Landing. I'm sorry, Sansa, more sorry than you can ever know."

"The gods are cruel," she whispers, touching her hand to his cheek. "You are not at fault. I am only thankful that you are here now."

His arms around her are a shelter. This is her soulmate, she can feel it, her heart is safe with him.

He holds her tightly to him as they walk to the sept for her second wedding, and she clutches him back just as tight. She does not remember the ceremony; who is there, what is said, what the crowd in the sept murmurs, what final cruelties Joffrey performs, nor does she know where the orange cloak around her shoulders comes from; she sees only the face of her soulmate staring back at her, his kind eyes, his resolute expression, the warmth of his hands holding hers.

Oberyn's retinue have already packed up her belongings during the wedding so that the moment the ceremony is done, and she and her husband have kissed, a soft press of lips that makes her heart flutter, he leads her straight out of the sept to his horse, lifting her up to sit in front of him as they ride through the streets to his boat.

She plucks her hair from its pins and pearls as they ride, dropping them into the street, feeling the sea breeze loosen her hair until it drapes her shoulders. In the harbour, Oberyn rides his horse straight up the gangplank on to his boat and then jumps down, lifting her from its back and whisking her away into his cabin.

They stop and stare at each other for a moment, as the noise of the sailors preparing to leave the harbour filters through the doors of the cabin, and then she reaches up to tug at the tie at the neck of her gown.

"Get me out of this gown, I'll die if I have to wear it for one more minute," she says, scrabbling at the clasps and laces.

"With pleasure," Oberyn says, reaching down to draw out a hidden dagger and brushing her own hands away before he slices through the laces and the fabric with loud rips, and then they both work to pull the horrid gown off her, and then her stays too, and to tug her shift over her head, and she stands wearing only her smallclothes, arms across her breasts, breathing heavily and smiling, feeling free.

He grins back and tugs his own clothes off, kicking his shoes across the room and making her laugh, pulling his tunic up so quickly that his hair is tufted up. She reaches over to pat it down, baring herself and hears his intake of breath. She puts her arms by her sides and stands there, chin lifted, feeling bold under his hot gaze. He moves a shaking hand to touch the soulmark, his name, and his eyes grow wet. She feels a spark of some wondrous emotion lance through her at the touch, and he bends to kiss her and murmur into her mouth.

Then he steps back and pulls down his smallclothes and tugs off the vambraces on his wrists, and is bare before her. She flushes at the sight, at all that brown skin, the hard muscles of his form, his large manhood between his thighs.

"Here," he says, taking her hand to touch his wrist, showing her his own mark. "It is easy to get distracted when faced with so much skin, is it not," he teases, and she smiles and shakes her head and then looks closely at the name writ on him. The name she had for barely an hour. He gasps when she touches it, groans like he is in some sweet pain, and she tilts her head and kisses him as his hands roam her body.

He brings her down to his bed just as the boat jolts as it leaves the harbour for the open seas, and kisses down her body, sucking on her teats, licking her hipbones, mouthing her inner thighs. She moans desperately when he sups on her cunt as if he is ravenous and then works his fingers into her to ready her for him. After she has peaked once, he crawls up her body and she clutches his shoulders, kissing him as he positions her legs around his hips and enters her with a grunt. The pain is brief and then the pleasure rises like a wave as they rock together, bodies so close she can barely breathe, a sweet ache blooming as he peaks with two hard thrusts and spills inside of her.

"Sansa, sweet wife," he murmurs, as he kisses her.

"Husband," she replies and smiles dazedly, as he shifts to lie beside her, arm across her waist. "This is not a dream," she says wondrously, drinking in the sight of his face, flushed and proud.

"No, it is not," he says, stroking her hair back from her hot face. "Sansa," he says, "once I have you safe in Sunspear, Dorne will make an alliance with the North. There are plans to make the Lannisters pay, to take back the throne. I will have our vengeance, I will help you save your family, I swear it."

Her eyes fill with tears and he embraces her and kisses her and murmurs sweet things, promises, regrets, plans for a glorious future in which the two of them will never be parted again.

 

*

 

Oberyn left too quickly from King's Landing to send a raven to Doran, and by the time he has a spare moment to send one, a spare moment when he is not abed with his wife – his wife! he smiles so widely at that thought - it is uncertain whether their speeding boat might very well arrive before the bird. He cannot wait to see Doran's shocked face, to have him welcome Sansa to their family, to be _home_ once again.

Doran ordered him to return with the head of Elia's murderer and he hopes that he is not too wroth that he returns with a bride instead. For now the future that Oberyn had dreaded so fiercely, that he had run from, is clear to him - Dorne will make an alliance with the dragons and the North, and Oberyn will leave his wife safe in Sunspear and journey to King's Landing to bring back the heads of _all_ the Lannisters, to put into use every dark art he has learned to rain vengeance upon their house, and to reclaim the Iron Throne for its rightful rulers.

The gods may have their plans, but he has his, and woe betide anyone, or any force, that stands in his way.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment, I'd love to hear what people think! For some reason this story was quite hard to sit down and write, even though I had it plotted for a while, so I'm very pleased I can finally share it with you :)
> 
> my tumblr: [framboise-fics](http://framboise-fics.tumblr.com)
> 
> and there's a rebloggable photoset for this fic [here](https://framboise-fics.tumblr.com/post/168782758352/soulmate-marks-are-rare-precious-things-in)


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